


Conspectus - Mystery

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1422]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 06:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Balboa drags Tony into helping solve a mystery case that his team caught. At the same time, Tony finds a break through on a cold case for Team Gibbs.
Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1422]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/444514
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36
Collections: Cutsycat's Five Prompts Challenge





	Conspectus - Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 03/23/2003 for the word [conspectus](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/03/23/conspectus).
> 
> conspectus[ kuhn-spek-tuhs ]  
noun, plural con·spec·tus·es.  
a general or comprehensive view; survey.  
a digest; summary; résumé.
> 
> This is for Prompt #4 of the October 2019 Five Prompts Challenge located [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/212133.html).

“Tony?” Balboa stopped in front of Tony’s desk and when Tony looked up, Balboa handed him a stack of papers. “Can you take a look a this?”

Tony took the case files or at least that’s what he assumed they were. A brief glance, however, made him blink in confusion. “What is this?”

“That’s just it. We don’t know. I was hoping you could work some of your magic on this conspectus and associated paperwork and figure out what we’re dealing with here.”

“I’ll try,” Tony sounded dubious to his own ears.

“That’s all I can ask, man. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

They weren’t currently working a case, so Tony stopped his perusal of cold cases for now to give the stack of papers a more thorough review. The first page appeared to be a summary of what had been tried already as well as any information that seemed like it might be important or related. Of course, what that really meant is here is all the shit we found that we can’t figure out how it goes together.

It was pretty much guaranteed that at least half of what was on the summary was wrong. Tony sighed and shook his head as he moved onto the next page. The second page looked like a letter someone had written to someone else. 

Tony didn’t recognize any of the names, but that was probably to be expected. After that came the page that contained a stream of numbers and nothing else, followed by an artwork of a similar nature to the well known Mona Lisa. There were a couple more pages filled with numbers and letters in a way that didn’t make sense. 

Tony analyzed each and every page thoroughly. He needed to know everything there was to know about this if he hoped to figure out what it was. He stared at the pages for a while, committing them to memory, before deciding that he couldn’t do any more with it right now.

He remembered reading something where someone had said, “To see the truth requires more than your eyes.” He didn’t remember who said it, but it felt very fitting to what was happening right now. He hoped that after taking a break and returning to the cold case files he had been perusing that he would have a flash of insight into what exactly the stack of papers meant.

Tony played with his cold case files. There was something nagging him about them as well, but he didn’t know what. With a sigh, he returned to the stack that Balboa had brought him. 

As he pulled them out this time, he felt the papers. Maybe touch was important to this mystery. Or maybe a mystery was exactly what it was supposed to be. 

Tony took off the top sheet with the summary and guesses of other agents and looked at the letter again. Tony had determined it was a letter because of the signature line and the starting line and the text in between. It really could have been any number of other documents that followed a similar setup, but as he glanced at the letters he realized that while some of the words were recognizable this wasn’t actually English.

A brief google search revealed that someone had written this letter in Esperanto. Once he realized that, he sent it down to the translation department. He was surprised that no one had already done that and gotten a full translation of it, yet.

While he waited for the results he poked at his cold cases some more. He finally figured out what was bothering him and after a flurry of researching found the proof he needed. He sent it over to Gibbs to review, who gave him a nod of confirmation.

Gibbs was going to follow up on Tony’s new lead on the cold case. He’d probably take McGee with him. McGee needed to learn how to handle being in Gibbs’ presence better, plus if he actually wanted to be an SFA like he claimed there was still a lot he needed to learn.

It wasn’t much longer before his translation came back. As Tony read through the letter now that it was in a language he knew, he realized immediately what he was really looking at. This letter was a love letter. 

In fact, it was a love letter between two spies. The letter contained all the information needed to decode the rest of the information and Tony gladly called Balboa back over and explained what he’d found out. 

“Thanks! I knew you could figure it out.” Balboa grinned.

“No problem.”

Balboa waved as he returned to his desk and Tony returned to reviewing more cold cases while waiting for Gibbs to call or return from following the lead. Gibbs call finally came through to inform him that they’d found the guy and were bringing him back for interrogation. Apparently, the location he was staying was chock full of evidence and Gibbs demanded that Tony get someone out there to take care of bagging and tagging. Having just done a favor for Balboa, Tony walked over to his desk to see if his team had time to bag and tag for this cold case that had just turned into a hot case. 

“Sorry, man, but your help has broken our case wide open too.”

“No problem. I can get someone else.” There were always less experienced teams that could be pulled in for something like this. Tony found one and sent them on their way. He then headed to the interrogation room to get it setup for Gibbs.

By the time the day was over two cases had been wrapped up, largely thanks to Tony, and he couldn’t help feeling a sense of satisfaction about it. It was days like this that kept him going through the hard cases. Tomorrow would be another day and another case, but for now he’d done his job and it was time to go home for a well deserved rest.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has 1 story already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least 1 more story before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> It's 2019 now and I have closed my 2018 Prompt collection, but fear not my 2019 Prompt Collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. Do not fear I have not forgotten about the 2018 prompts and will continue working through them. It's just easier for me to not get overwhelmed if I keep the prompts separated by the year they were given to me.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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